


Only Now

by chucks_prophet



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Accidentally Inspired by What is And What Should Never Be, Again a rare write for me so enjoy it while you can, Angst, Angst with a Happy Ending, Brotherly Angst, Established Castiel/Dean Winchester, Funeral, Gen, Good Parent John Winchester, Grieving Dean Winchester, Grieving Sam Winchester, Heavy Angst, John's Funeral, M/M, Speeches
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-05
Updated: 2018-11-05
Packaged: 2019-08-19 04:19:44
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,749
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16527215
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chucks_prophet/pseuds/chucks_prophet
Summary: Sam takes a breath and turns to face the crowd again, this time with a forced, but courteous smile. “Well, what’re we waiting for? Let’s send him off. Unless anyone else wants to speak?”There’s an air of hesitation among the audience. Some want to speak, but don’t know what to say. Others don’t want to speak, but probably have more insight to the deceased the family will never get to hear.Dean’s mouth parts when Cas slips his hand out from his and moves to the podium.





	Only Now

**Author's Note:**

> This came from a very personal place for me. I hope that shines through here. <3

“John, my dad… he, um… he…” Dean bites his lip. He feels as shaky as the rosary in Priest Creaser’s hands. His eyes are restless—large wet pupils accommodating the sniffling swimmers before him. A drop of sweat careens down the back of his neck, causing him to wriggle.

He laughs and taps the mic. The third tap sounds distant, like he’s on the receiving end of a seashell message. Suddenly, he feels like he’s holding a sea of people, rather than a pool. His throat tightens. He’s drowning. Lurching forward with a hand around his neck, Sam springs from his seat in the front row. A large, warm hand on Dean’s shoulder: a life vest. He slowly, blearily, swims back to shore.

Dean laughs again once he has some air: “My dad’d be _pissed_ if he saw how emotional I was getting over this. He keeps his gaze on the podium. “Even his own death, you know? Even when he was sick, he refused to acknowledge it. Once, he came home on leave with part of his ear missing. My mom was furious. He told her a barracuda’s bite wasn’t poisonous, and it’s ‘not like he needed that part of his ear, anyway’. He went on to serve five more tours and earn a Legion of Merit as a Commander in his fourth, because that was dad—he always had to prove he was on top of it. So mom didn’t have to worry, or Sam or me…”

His air supply runs short again. Sam squeezes his shoulder tighter, but it offers no relief. Scanning the crowd, Dean meets his partner’s eyes. That buys him another minute. “But now, um… now that responsibility’s been passed to me, so he doesn’t have to run his own funeral. Even though, if he were here, he’d have catering send back the chicken for being too dry.” Dean laughs dryly. A few people chuckle, too. He smiles a little before turning to his left. “Oh, and my brother,” he says. He clasps his shoulder with the same firmness, but he has a hard time looking directly at him. “Thank you, Sam, for gathering everyone here on such short notice. You’ve always been good with people.”

Throwing up his hands, Dean finishes with: “Well, that’s all I got. The floor’s yours, Sam.”

Sam nods and pats Dean on the back one last time as he exits the stage. “Thank you, everyone, for the amazing turnout. Some of you I haven’t seen since my fruits and veggies kicked in…”

“That was beautiful, Dean,” Cas whispers, lending out his hand. Dean grips it with the strength of a two-time, prize-winning bull rider.

“I never knew my mom growing up,” Sam continues. He’s much more composed than Dean. Dean likes to believe it’s because he’s a lawyer, and he’s treating this as another speech. He has to. He can’t be the only one taking this hard. Dean’s supposed to be the strong one. That’s what his dad told him when he told Dean to watch after Sam. “He wouldn’t really talk about her, aside from rambling on about how beautiful she was. Instead, he _showed_ us who she was. He not only admired her, he emulated her. To honor her. And that’s how I learned about my mother—through him.”

“And sure, there were times when he’d raise his voice or pick a fight—hell, he kicked me out because I wanted to go to college. And not just any college, _Stanford…”_

“Oh no, here he goes,” Dean grumbles.

“Let him speak,” Cas says.

“At the time, I thought, ‘He’s such a prick. He doesn’t really love me. If he loved me, he’d let me go to college, build a life for myself—honor him the way he did us.’” Sam nods, shifting his gaze to the centerpiece of the large outdoor area. It’s a beautiful casket. All black with red lining. The American flag is draped over the closed bottom half, along with John’s weathered white cap. On the inside is the official Marine Corps logo. John’s dressed in his uniform, decorated with multicolored medals. He looks at peace—well rested from a heart attack. “But now, I understand, Dad. You didn’t want me to leave because everyone else already had. Mom was in an urn. Dean was fighting fires for Lawrence, about to be transferred out to Kansas City, and now I was leaving. Well, Dad, I hope you found it in your heart to forgive me.” Sam takes a breath and turns to face the crowd again, this time with a forced, but courteous smile. “Well, what’re we waiting for? Let’s send him off. Unless anyone else wants to speak?”

There’s an air of hesitation among the audience. Some want to speak, but don’t know what to say. Others don’t want to speak, but probably have more insight to the deceased the family will never get to hear.

Dean’s mouth parts when Cas slips his hand out from his and moves to the podium.

He’s gorgeous like this, Dean thinks, with his dark brown hair combed over, exposing more of his tanned forehead. The rest of his face, also bronze, glows underneath the sun’s harsh rays. He even fills out his suit. When Dean met him, he closer resembled the blades of winter grass he’s crushing beneath his loafers that compliment his blue eyes. Cas had no sense of time, direction—no care in the world except the crushing weight of everything. Now he sets Dean’s alarms for work the night before and has his own jogging route.

He clears his throat and dips the microphone just a bit lower to his height. He shifts before laughing, “I’m a writer for a living, and even I’m at a loss for words. Words, sometimes... they have short limbs. They always say the actions of a man shape him, and John knew this. He knew he’d either have to stretch his arms or get his hands dirty.” Cas smiles. He raises his right arm to gesture around the attendees. “And, when you look around here today, you know the dirt beneath his fingernails was worth it.”

“See, I’ve never been big into religion,” he continues, shrugging. “I just found it an ironically sanctimonious concept. At least, that’s how some people come off about it. But after witnessing this ceremony, hearing the priest and the family speak, I’ve come to an important realization: We may not all believe in God, but every single one of us has our own religion. Sometimes it’s a lover. Sometimes it’s a pet. Sometimes it’s your neighbor waving to you every morning from his front lawn. We all have something to keep us grounded, to keep us going. John had Mary. I... well; I have the next best thing: The boy next door.”

“See, I only have one regret since John died. And even though he’s no longer living to see me right that regret, I’m seizing the last moment I, and all of you, will have with him. So now, if you’ll please excuse me. Dean?”

As if Dean wasn’t already captivated by the speech—or anything his boyfriend does, really—his eyes perk up. He shoots his head in both directions, searching for an answer in the crowd. Everyone matches his perplexed state—even Bobby next to him, wearing his signature shredded baseball cap when he’s not on-call for a fire. He’s always had some sort of answer for Dean whenever he couldn’t make the forty mile drive home to visit John.

Then everyone gasps.

Dean snaps his head back to see Cas in front of the podium, on bended knee, with a ring.

“Will you do the honors of breaking my heart in half a century’s time?”

Feeling his heart race again, Dean starts to panic—only because he forgets to look at Cas. Once he meets his eyes, he realizes it’s not dread that’s coursing through him: It’s pure, unfiltered joy. Instead of drowning, he feels like he’s floating. Instead of feeling like an entire sea, he feels like one man out on the water. One man plus one.

Dean isn’t even conscious he’s nodding until Cas’s face splits into a big, gummy smile. The crowd scatters its applause before igniting into a full-on cheer due to one man in a beat-up Canaries cap letting out a long, high-pitched whistle.

The moment’s quickly ruined when a set of gunshots sounds in the distance. Everyone snaps their heads frantically before finding the culprit: a line of military men, aiming their rifles towards the sky.

Dean breathes a laugh. He even meets Sam’s eye briefly in the neighboring row. His grin tightens a little upon contact, but he nods nonetheless. Dean musters a smile in return.

 

 

“You know, I have a regret, too.” Cas’s ears perk up at this. Dean’s a man of few regrets—that he cares to divulge, anyway. But it’s like him to drop something like this in a parked car, in a packed parking lot, because Dean’s emotions come in waves. It doesn’t matter who’s out at sea when they arrive. They’re guaranteed to get hit with a rare, stone-turning blast. “I wish we had more pictures with him,” he says. 

“People take pictures to live in the later,” Cas replies. “You were too busy living in the now.”

There’s a pause. Dean’s still gripping Cas’s hand over the gear shift—this time with a shiny silver band around his ring finger. His voice comes out softer, though what he says next is far from a secret: “I want Sam and I to be closer.” His jaw tightens, causing his ginger stubble to dance. “I can’t lose him too.”

Cas nods. “Okay. We’ll work on that. Together.”

“No.”

“No?”

“No,” Dean repeats. There’s no insolence in his tone. Just plain fact. “No, this is something I have to do myself.”

Cas drops his head and squeezes Dean’s hand. “Dean, you’re not your father.”

Something about those words triggers the floodgates behind Dean’s emerald eyes.

“Let me help you. Before it’s too late. Before I’m reading _your_ eulogy.”

Slowly, Dean begins to nod. Then, as two single tears fall, laughs, “Fuck, I haven’t even kiss you yet.”

“Well, what’re you waiting for?” Cas scoffs, but not without a smile, “It’s not like I have my whole life, either.”

“No, you don’t,” Dean agrees, pulling Cas closer with his other hand, “but we still have right now.”


End file.
